The Future of Operations: Simplify, Innovate and Transform
Posted on 04/17/2018
This article is sponsored by Broadridge.
Now that the pain of the global financial crisis and subsequent regulations are starting to fade from view, the asset management industry is facing new challenges that will transform the business. Firms must be nimble enough to support this evolution. That means not only redesigning operations, but also adopting new technologies that can be used for innovation in-house and with the help of partners.
In active management, the industry has created more complex products to generate alpha, while the growth of passive management, spurred by fintech competition, is compressing fees. At the same time, expansion into new markets has added costs. Facing these challenges will require serious improvements to back- and middle-office operations — an overhaul of everything from data validation to trade reconciliation.
For this type of transformation, experts say, it’s not enough to improve the steps in a process. Financial institutions need to eliminate steps. Specifically, executive members of the Asset Management Group of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) say that leading firms should:
Work collaboratively. Firms should collaborate to solve common problems; use associations to identify and promote best practices; and partner with service providers, utilities and regulators to tap their specialized skills and mutualize non-differentiating functions.
Tackle common pain points. Many of the industry’s biggest challenges come from a lack of standardized processes: Standardizing data is the top challenge and sets a foundation to accelerate change.
Leverage transformational technology. Cloud computing, artificial intelligence, and distributed ledger technology can be transformational over the coming three, five or 10 years — but investing now is vital.
Assess, accept and mitigate risks. During times of large transformational change, it should be understood that risks are higher. This traditionally risk-adverse industry must balance the need for bold change against the fear of producing subpar outcomes.
This paper asks how asset managers can move beyond incremental improvements, like shaving costs from processes like post-trade settlement, regulatory compliance and reconciliation, to reimagining how operations are handled. Based on discussions with executives from leading asset management, buy-side, and sell-side firms, as well as service providers, it assesses the drivers for change and the challenges and opportunities ahead, and discusses what actions the industry must take to reach its desired future state.
The long-term vision of how asset management operations should change is best summed up by one word: Simplify.
To learn more about “The Future of Operations” for the asset management industry, download the white paper from Broadridge and the SIFMA Asset Management Group.
To learn more about Broadridge’s solutions for the asset management industry, please visit www.broadridge.com/financial-services/asset-management/